One million for you, one million for me, plant a few million trees, cure a few deadly diseases… how would you spend $3 trillion dollars? Got any better ideas than invading a country and killing thousands of American soldiers and innocent people? Check out 3trillion.org, where you can take a stab at finding alternative ways to spend Bush’s hallucinogenic gold mine. I gave everyone in the U.S. a collection of Radiohead albums and was still able to end hunger and poverty related diseases.
The projected cost of the Iraq war was somewhere around $50 billion when Bush and Rumsfeld first started out on their crusade in 2003. Numerous golf outings and five years later we now have a projected $3 trillion price tag (Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stigliz). It’s unfortunate to assume that the Iraq war is a justified reason for the recession that we’ve found ourselves hurling toward.
Our grand GOPs in congress even enacted tax cuts back then, defying historical logic that in times of war taxes were raised to keep our economy afloat. Of course, we’re all getting beat up anyway, with conservative estimated costs of the war at about $100 a month per American household. Dear George W, Thanks for the $600 economic stimulus, which is adding to our national debt and will be back to bite us in the ass soon enough. Ouch, lucky us. We’ve also had a Democratically-led Congress for the past few years that has sat in the shadows and done little to reverse these actions; waiting and hoping and praying for the day that their golden child will arrive and make everything all better. It comes down to $435 million per day, $18 million an hour, $300,000 a minute, $5,000 per second… While Halliburton and other such companies have been sitting pretty and rich with our national debt’s blood on their hands.
Here is how the $3 trillion cost estimate of the Iraq war is to be divided in the eyes of our government:
- $526 billion: borrowed money (from other countries as well as gov’t selling of bonds, treasury bills, etc. at around 4% interest that we’ll end up paying for in 30 years)
- $615 billion: total interest costs for taxpayers (yeah, you)
- $280 billion: rebuilding of the military
- $590 billion: disability benefits and health care for Iraq veterans
- $1.5 trillion: estimated cost to continue Bush’s war plan through to 2017
It is important for us to realize where this money is going. The U.S.’s faltering economy could be our Achilles heal in many respects; a weak economy makes us less prepared to handle any threat to security or internal crisis. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently stated that about half of the California National Guard’s equipment is in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Aside from breaking down our internal readiness, this war will cost us more money than any other war in history except for World War II. A recent Senate committee report shows that the cost of servicing the Iraq war debt will exceed federal spending on both education and health research next year. The impact that this will have on us and our children is astronomical. When did the vitality of Iraq become more important then the vitality our own country?
Do you think you have a better plan of how to spend $3,000,000,000,000? Visit 3trillion.org, and when you’re done, give George W. a call and tell him all about it: 202-456-1111.
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